Snakes in the Class
by Hazuzu
Summary: A Hufflepuff Prefect is patrolling the corridors when she hears a first-year crying and can't stop herself from helping.


"Somebody's crying." Rowan whispered. There wasn't much that couldn't have been heard in the vast halls of Hogwarts, where every shuffling foot would bounce off of the walls a hundred times, but she did it all the same.

"What?" Bramley spun on his heel. He was a good head taller than her, and opposite in just about every way, but the thing that kept them together was the matching badges on their breasts. They were both metallic Ps, cast against yellow, although his was much shinier. He couldn't let a day pass without a good polishing, she reckoned.

"In here." Rowan pointed at the door she'd stopped beside. It was a soft, dry, and all too weak. The sound of somebody who'd spent too long crying and hadn't even considered when to stop. "...I'm going in."

"It's probably just Myrtle again." Bramley shrugged his burly shoulders. "Come on, we've got to finish the rounds before class, or the Heads will have our..." He paused. "Necks."

"You expect me to walk away from a crying child?" Rowan was aghast.

"You're technically a child." Bramley pointed out. Their eyes met and Rowan was in no mood to back down. "Alright, I'll tell you what – I'll finish the rounds and say you're in the bathroom, then heading straight to class."

"Thank you." Rowan bowed her head.

"You might not thank me when I tell them why. I'm thinking the drizzling sh-"

"Thank you." Rowan repeated, then shunted him off with a wave of her hand. The boy grinned, then disappeared around the corner with his robes flowing behind him. She might have smiled at his humor, crude as it was, were it not for the lingering sobs.

Rowan tentatively reached for the doorknob and eased it open. It was impossible to enter some doors without a hundred creaks announcing one's presence, and this one was no different. A classroom waited beyond the threshold, with desks pushed up against the walls, windows shuttered, and the still air of a room that hadn't been disturbed in many a year.

Until recently. At the center of the room sat a girl. She'd been swallowed by her robes, with little more than a mousy head and shaggy blonde hair poking out of the top of it. Her cheeks had been stained with tears and her wand discarded by her feet – at least thirteen inches by Rowan's estimation, and whittled from a pale wood. It was then that she saw what the girl was sitting on – a great piece of paper, stretching from wall to wall, and covered in a mess of unidentifiable inky scribbles.

"Hello." Rowan offered her most ingratiating smile as she stepped up to the edge of the massive drawing. "My name is Rowan Rowanwood. I'm a Hufflepuff Prefect." She tapped her badge. "May I come in?" She asked. What she really wanted was to run right in and cuddle the woes out of the girl, but that, she'd been told, was unbecoming of a Prefect.

It seemed to take great effort for the girl to look up. She looked Rowan over, then nodded weakly.

Rowan carefully stepped across the page and up to the girl's side. She didn't want to step on any of the ink, lest she ruin...whatever it was. Once there, she sat down, crossed her legs, and smiled once more.

"What's your name, sweet thing?" Rowan asked softly.

"D-Donna." The girl's voice was hoarse.

"It's nice to meet you, Donna. I'm not was well-traveled as some, but that's a Shropshire accent, isn't it?"

"Os...Oswestry."

"I see." Rowan didn't know the distinction, but if it mattered to Donna, then it mattered to her. "So, Donna from Oswestry, what's this thing we're sitting on?"

"S-Study." Donna pulled her knees up to her chest, though her legs could hardly be seen through her excessively baggy robes. Just from how she said it, Rowan knew she'd found the source of the girl's tears.

"What are you studying for, Donna? It's all scribbles to me." Rowan confessed.

"Herb..." Donna sniffled. "Herbology."

"I happen to know a little about Herbology. Although, I suppose everyone does, given it's mandatory. Can you tell me how it helps?"

"D-Drawings." Donna's eyes shifted to the side. "P-Plants."

"They're drawings of plants?" Rowan raised an eyebrow. She couldn't make hide or hair out of it, but perhaps Donna could see something she couldn't. At the least, she knew that Donna had to be the source of the giant page. "I do remember hearing about Herbology exams today. Why don't you go to the greenhouses? That's where all the other students are going." She knew, because she'd had to herd a few younger Hufflepuffs there that morning.

Donna curled herself into a smaller ball.

"Donna? Can you tell me?"

Donna shook her head. It was a tiny movement, but one that told Rowan a lot. Something was driving her away.

"Are you sure? If you can just articulate it, I might be able to help you."

Donna stayed silent.

"I suppose, if that's how you feel..." Rowan tapped her fingers on her legs as she thought. First-years were always prone to fickle emotions, and muggleborns doubly so. "You seem to like drawing. Perhaps you can show me, if you don't want to tell me?"

Donna remained still for a moment, then pointed at a half-open bag that had been left open by the door.

"Let me get that for you." Rowan slipped her wand out of her sleeve and the bag came flying over to her lap. "Do you know that spell, Donna?"

Donna nodded.

"What is it?" Rowan asked, as she handed the bag to the younger girl.

"A-Accio."

"That's right!" Rowan grinned. "I knew you had an eye for charms as soon as I saw this drawing, you know. Your first year and performing engorgement charms already! Let's see if we can't find what's stopping you from doing just as well at Herbology."

Donna pulled a journal out of her bag and handed it to Rowan with shaking fingers. She opened the book to the first page, which depicted a set of students in a familiar sketchy style. They were all well-groomed, their robes were stylish, and they had impeccable wandwork. Yet there was something off with the drawing, something that Rowan couldn't quite put her finger on.

"Watch this." Rowan said, as she tapped her wand to the page and the three figures started moving. Just a little, but enough. They flicked their wands. They adjusted their poses. And then Rowan saw it; the hoods of their cloaks were moving. Opening and closing, with a pair of fangs and a slightly scaled texture. Like snake heads. "They're Slytherins."

Donna nodded. Her eyes were suddenly shifty, like she was figuring something out for herself.

Rowan's suspicion was confirmed when she flipped to the next page and saw a drawing of Donna. It was not nearly so flattering as the others, with dirt on her cheeks, clothes that didn't fit her, and the snake's head that made up her hood wilting, drooping, barely even there. Even the drawing seemed about ready to cry.

"The Slytherins are being mean to you." Rowan said softly. There was nothing she hated more than bullies, but her desire to stop a child crying overpowered even that. "Because your parents are muggles. Is that right?"

Donna shuddered as she nodded. Fresh tears formed in her eyes.

"And they think that you're not a real Slytherin." Rowan said.

"I..." Donna trembled. "Y-Yeah. A-And I try...be nice..." Rowan could her the strain in her voice. The sheer effort it took to scramble her words together. "They, pretty, but I...ugly...dumb...stupid mudblood stupid, stupid..." She forced her eyes closed and clenched her hands into fists. Rowan gave her time to let the tears out, to calm herself and get through them in her own time.

"Th-Th-They said, I'll never...be like them. And they're pretty and perfect and I'm not and I can't talk and I want them to like me and I do what they say and they don't like it or me but I try and they don't and I...I..." Donna whimpered again. "Maybe...maybe they'll like me if I do what they say. They said I can't go to the greenhouse with real Slytherins and I can't wear my robes properly and I have to do it myself or they'll put snakes in my bed and cut out my hair and hit me and..."

"Let me tell you something, Donna." Rowan held herself back from hugging Donna than and there. "I have seen many Slytherins, and the girls you're talking about are definitely snakes. And absolutely venomous. But those are not the traits of a Slytherin. Where is the ambition in picking on an as-yet uneducated loner in their house? Where is the cunning in bold-faced threats? Where is the fraternity in depriving one of their own of her education?"

"I-I don't know..."

"There is none. If you asked me to find a model Slytherin, I would point them towards you, Donna." Rowan said. "You have no greenhouse, so you've made one out of ink. Resourcefulness. You're learning second-year spells," She gestured at the engorged paper they sat on. "Before your first year is even close to finished. Ambition. You're hunted by your fellow Slytherins, so you've sought a way to avoid their fury. Self-preservation. And perhaps most importantly – The Sorting Hat is a wise being who has dedicated over a thousand years of its life to divining which traits the students of Hogwarts most embody. Would you trust it, or some silly girls who don't even know what a television is?"

Donna shrugged her shoulders, but Rowan knew that she was getting through to her. She had to believe it, or how could Donna?

"If that's not enough..." Rowan reached out for Donna's wand. "I'm a Rowanwood. Wandlore is part of our names and our nature. Your wand tells me two things about you. The first is its length – stunted witches have stunted wands, and yours is no fewer than thirteen inches. If you were so worthless as these girls claim, this wouldn't be true. Your wand wouldn't have chosen you."

"And the other – it is Willow. A very interesting wood," Rowan smiled. "It favors those with great potential, the meek and the ignorant, who, with great effort, will become greater than any who think they know everything already. They are also very handy for non-verbal magic, which, I think, will make even the stutteriest stuttering irrelevant."

"But the most important aspect of Willow, proven through generations of witches and wizards and a hundred experts on wandlore..." Rowan held it out to Donna, who clasped it in wary fingers. "Is that it always chooses someone with great insecurities. And those insecurities are always unfounded. And they are always overcome." She wrapped her fingers over Donna's. "You are a witch, Donna, and as true a Slytherin as there will ever be. And if you ever find yourself unable to speak, unable to do what you want, whether because of yourself or others...stand up." She instructed, then got to her feet.

Donna unsteadily stood up along with her, her wand in hand.

"Let your skills speak for themselves. Repeat after me: Vividus." Rowan demonstrated the motion, and the words.

"V-Vividus."

"Again."

"V-Vividus."

"Think it if you have to. Vividus."

Donna's brows knitted together in concentration, she flicked her wand, and the drawings on the page beneath their feet suddenly spring to life. Some scribbles distinguished themselves as trees, simply swaying in the breeze. A mandrake sprung to life in the corner, its mouth open in a silent scream. Venomous tentacula vines wriggled their way between the other plans. Every scribble became that much clearer, from the devil's snare to the leaping toadstools, and Donna's mouth hung open in awe.

"You don't need their approval to be who you are, Donna." Rowan smiled at the younger girl. "You just need to be you. And if you need help, if you need someone else to lean on, then there will be people to help you. Me included."

"O-Okay." Despite her tears and her bloodshot eyes, a smile came to Donna's lips. "I-I'd like that."

"Good." Rowan nodded proudly. "Now, just one more thing. Your clothes. As a Prefect, I'm meant to deduct points for not adhering to the uniform code. But I think you know how to fix them, don't you? You know how to outsmart those girls."

Donna gripped her wand tightly. She took in the giant paper on the floor. Then she nodded, as sparkles came to her eyes. It took little more than a counter-charm for her clothes to turn into their normal shape and size, fitting her just like any other student.

"Th-Thank you, Miss Rowanwood." Donna peered up at the older girl with an ever-growing smile.

"Just Rowan will do nicely. Now, would you like to visit the greenhouses with me? The Hufflepuff students will be there to study shortly, and I think I should be able to fit you in." She held out her hand…

And Donna took it.


End file.
